Carl Brandt

Carl Brandt was Wagner’s chief collaborator. Despite some difficulties between the two men at certain stages, Brandt was very important to Wagner and influenced the Bayreuth stage considerably. He was the chief executor of the stage design, the Festspielhaus machinery (maybe he was the only technician capable to equip the theatre to meet Wagner’s high demands), and he also came up with the receding side walls, thus solving a major problem of Semper’s initial design.

Brandt was born June 15^th, 1828 in Darmstadt. He was trained as a machinist, first at the Darmstädter Gewerbeschule and afterward at the Polytechnical Institute. After his education, he worked as an apprentice at the Darmstädter Court theatre.

At the age of eighteen, Brandt was appointed first machinist at the Königstädtischen Theatre in Berlin and afterwards returned to Darmstadt. He was soon promoted to the function of chief machinist at the Court theatre.

He was one of the most important stage technicians of his time and closely followed the technical developments. Baumann notes that Brandt rebuilt and modernised not less than 24 theatres between 1857 and his death in 1881.

Brandt was an expert in the execution of transformation scenes and as such of great value to Wagner. It was an effect on which depended much of the magic of the nineteenth century stage. Furthermore, Brandt invented many smaller improvements to the scenery and machinery, such as the use of counterweights for almost every technical operation in the theatre.

Most probably, Wagner met Brandt in 1871, that is, there is no evidence of an earlier meeting by the two men. In 1871, the co-operation started and would last ten years. In 1881, Brandt died unexpectedly of an illness.